Talk:Effective character level
More information Where can I find more information about the class-based ECL system? *All class ECL's are defined in the classes.2da file which can be found in your source folder and with NWNExplorer. --Countess Terra 20:55, 12 February 2006 (PST) *Pedantry: I don't know when or where this idea of ECL races started, but, technically, there is no such thing (or, alternatively, all races are). As stated in the article, ECL is short for Effective Character Level -- not Class Level -- and despite the usage of the word, "level," this is only part of it (1/3rd, to be precise). ECL represents a character's total class levels + racial HD + Level Adjustment, and controls (as in NWN) encounter levels and rewards, but also how much XP is required to advance a level. Level Adjustment (LA) is what sets, say, drow, apart from humans, and it's this that "lags" a character's total class levels. Looking at the .2da, even BioWare seemed to know this, naming the columns EffC'R'Lvlxx (note, however, that in their case, as no LA races or races with racial HD are available as player races, using ECL wouldn't have been decidedly wrong -- just not completely right, either). :Since the idea of ECL races has become widely accepted (and LA completely ignored), I don't know if it'd be worth it to rewrite this article, and, certainly, it's much too late for it to have any real impact on the online community whatsoever. I wouldn't mind if it was "fixed," though. Thoughts? Snoteye 08:46, 15 August 2007 (PDT) *Notation: I also see that BioWare did not label this ECL, and given the way it calculates EffCRLvl likely points to the entire concept being understood as a CR adjustment, not a character level adjustment. I don't know if any BioWare documentation supports calling this ECL. WhiZard 14:38, May 13, 2010 (UTC) Use of article Due to considerable in-game testing I have found XP totals for non-multiclass penalty, non-party penalty kills to always correspond exactly to the 2da table (at 10% XP slider value) where the level used is based on an experience point total and not ECL. I have reached the conclusion that ECL is no longer used but have not been able to locate the patch or specific notes stating when and how it was changed for official verification. If my conclusion, exactly represents the case as to what is occurring then this article would likely be in need of rewriting (or even deletion). WhiZard 19:47, May 4, 2010 (UTC) * Looks like the expansions disabled it. The original campaign still uses ECL, but not as the character level, rather to find an amount short of the true level which is added to the monster's CR. WhiZard 22:06, May 11, 2010 (UTC) :* Does this adjustment affect the "Impossible", "Overpowering", etc. labels displayed when a creature is examined? --The Krit 21:08, June 3, 2010 (UTC) * I have just introduced a major change to the article, adjusting the table to account for the bonus to CR (easier to express than true class level - ECL for class and more direct for calculations). Also the article is now qualified for OC and OC mods.WhiZard 14:29, May 13, 2010 (UTC) :* I've just skimmed the changes, but it occurred to me that the "levels beyond 20" bit might be part of the explanation for odd XP awards known as the "Gold box bug". (I forget the details, but it only occurred with the unpatched Gold Edition of NWN.) I'll look at this more later to see what other details you've uncovered. --The Krit 22:14, May 13, 2010 (UTC) ::* Looked at the "Gold Box Bug" and it seems to be a 0XP reward for high challenge rating creatures (though this would only involve OC and SoU). The only way that this may correlate with the >20 level bug is if the gold edition didn't have ECL columns filled correctly for the prestige classes (or they failed to register) and thus gave a full class level addition to CR, such a condition may push the CR beyond the anticipated level 20 max and the calculator might not know how to handle this. WhiZard 00:29, May 14, 2010 (UTC) :::* Ah, that sounds more familiar. Perhaps not the same bug, then, but something similar. The over level 20 bug is probably because the game would try to read, for example, the EffCRLvl21 column from classes.2da. Since that column does not exist, its numeric value would default to 0, hence the CR bonus would be class level minus zero (i.e., the entire class level). Similarly, the Gold Box bug might have involved reading columns that did not exist in a .2da and ending up with 0, although in that case it would be columns in xptable.2da. This would fit with patching fixing the Gold Box bug (that was the fix, wasn't it? Or did HotU need to be installed?), as the patched executable could correctly cap the integer used to generate column names. --The Krit 21:39, June 3, 2010 (UTC) :* By the way, I think the change to the table would have been a good move, even if the rest of the article had been accurate. (Well, if it had been accurate, then negatives in the table might have been clearer, but the point is that a presentation that uses zeros as "normal" is easier to interpret at a glance than one that uses an increasing sequence of numbers as "normal".) --The Krit 16:08, June 10, 2010 (UTC) Need of further tests 1) I had someone look into whether OC created mods factored in ECL, but when I recently downloaded a NWN v1.18 mod from the vault it seems quite evident that it is not factored, thus if testing could be made to see if playing an NWN:OC only created mod using an NWN:OC only version will still have ECL. WhiZard 01:57, May 14, 2010 (UTC) 2) The "Gold Box Bug" could be a result of trying to use a CR of greater than 20 when the 2da only maxes at 20 (OC and SoU 2da). I have tested the OC (as it uses ECL) with its original 2da overriding the HotU xptable.2da and received 0XP for pushing the CR beyond 20. Thus if someone with the gold edition could check if the prestige classes have their "EffCRLvl" columns in classes.2da filled with the corresponding number as the column indicates. Also a test is needed to see if the Gold Edition actually uses ECL (if the SoU is tested remember the slider is set to 15%, so non-multiclass penalty, non-party size penalty should be at 1.5 the table reading). WhiZard 01:57, May 14, 2010 (UTC) * It's not just the .2da that needs to be overridden for an accurate test, but the executable as well. The non-HotU executables should be capping things at 20 and not trying to read columns for higher levels, but this might not be the case. Overriding a .2da could be a fix for the bug, but the actual fault for the bug more likely lies in the executable and an incorrect cap. --The Krit 21:47, June 3, 2010 (UTC) The "others" column Does the far right ("others") column include all the prestige classes or just the balance of the standard (non-prestige) classes? --Iconclast 17:33, June 13, 2010 (UTC) * All other classes. --The Krit 21:30, June 13, 2010 (UTC)